


A Life Day Carol

by slytherclawpadawan



Category: A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: It's literally A Christmas Carol, Kallus is Scrooge, Merry Christmas everybody, My First Fanfic, So if you know the story you know what happens here, the Ghost Crew are the Cratchits, there will be pain, why not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-18 20:00:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13107501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slytherclawpadawan/pseuds/slytherclawpadawan
Summary: After dealing with a stressful situation involving illegal Life Day decorations, Kallus is visited by the specter of a long-dead colleague, who informs him that he will be haunted by three spirits who seek to help him redeem himself, resolve his inner conflict, and find the true meaning of Life Day.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was watching Muppet Christmas Carol, and I thought how a lot of shows have Christmas Carol episodes, so I decided to give Rebels one! As it says in the tags, this is the first fanfic I've ever posted, so please feel free to give any feedback you feel necessary so I may grow in and improve my writing!

Kallus sighed in incredulity and exasperation as he beheld the festive monstrosity that lay before him. _Someone_ had taken it upon themselves to somehow break into the Imperial Complex on Lothal apparently for the sole purpose of vandalizing it with Life Day decorations, presumably to protest the Imperial ban on anything remotely resembling Life Day celebrations. He gaped at the main hangar as his eyes were assaulted with reds, greens, blues, and golds of the most garish variety as they clashed hideously with the stark whites, greys, and blacks of the Imperial color scheme. All of the walkers had strands of some fuzzy, glittery gold substance wrapping up the legs, the transports were adorned with giant red ribbons with sickeningly saccharine bows at the tops (conveniently blocking off the doors), and everything that could hold a hook with covered with brightly colored glass baubles. Kallus fought the urge to vomit at the sight of it all.

“Ah, Agent Kallus!” said a familiarly self-important drone from behind him. He turned to see Lieutenant Lyste strutting into the hangar looking as if some illegal decorations were the most important situation he’ll ever handle in his entire career. Unsurprising, given that was how he regarded every situation he came across. “As you can see, the citizens of Lothal have decided the directly challenge His Majesty’s decision to do away with antiquated celebrations that have no place in our modern age.”

“I highly doubt this is anything more than puerile vandalism, Lieutenant,” replied Kallus, _really_ not in the mood for Lyste’s usual pomp and arrogance. “Let’s just focus on getting this cleaned up and punishing whoever’s responsible.”

“I’m afraid I have to disagree” Lyste said smugly, his already insufferable smirk somehow deepening. “This is clearly an act of treason and must be dealt with as such. I have already contacted Governor Pryce, and she happens to share my beliefs. Therefore, finding the culprits falls under your jurisdiction, as is the follow up investigation, sanctioned by the governor, to ensure that this is not indicative of a larger movement.”

“Well if Pryce insists, then I guess we had better get to it,” carefully replied Kallus through gritted teeth, using every ounce of self-control in his very being to not throttle Lyste where he stood. Lyste didn’t give a solitary damn about the implications of festive vandalism, except for how his response could make him look good. Kallus also knew damn well that while Lyste was not a liar, he was not above exaggerating Pryce’s amount of concern for the situation. Her real response to Lyste’s report was probably some diplomatic version of “I don’t really care how you do it, just handle it,” which he interpreted as “You have free reign.”

And Lyste used that presumed free reign to inflate the situation to something far more involved than it ever needed to be while plopping Kallus right in the middle of it. Kallus was quite deeply engaged in pursuing those actively working against the Empire; he had no time to lead an entire investigation centered around childish vandalism. He was already behind on his workload due to recovering from his brief marooning on that skies-forsaken ice moon. He shuddered to think of the overtime he’d have to put in to make up for a day in a bacta tank plus a week in recovery. Even still, he suspected that his leg was not yet fully recovered, given that it was still quite a nuisance in the mornings and at the end of the day, and a little part of him doubted that it ever would be.

The culprits were found relatively quickly, a few first-year cadets who had apparently found it to be an amusing practical joke and were irritatingly surprised upon discovering that no one else shared their amusement. If Kallus had his way, they’d just be made to clean up their mess and expelled from the Academy, or at least be put on serious probation, and that would be the end of it. But no, since Lyste had insisted on complicating it, Kallus now had to thoroughly investigate all the cadets at the Complex as well as the perpetrators’ families. Treating the incident as treason also meant that the cadets had to face officials significantly higher up than Kallus for discipline, who might decide on a far worse punishment than what would normally be allotted. As Kallus watched the scared and confused cadets, who had to have been no older than fifteen, be carted off onto a shuttle, he felt a strange feeling rise in his gut. Guilt? Anger? _No_ , Kallus chided himself, _they’re stupid kids who deserve what’s coming to them_.

But should stupidity carry a death warrant?

Kallus did his best to put that though aside as he dragged him through the rest of his duties, but it stubbornly remained in the back of his head for the rest of the day.

_If you want to know what’s gonna happen to those kids, then just ask_ , Orrelios would probably say. Kallus considered it for a moment, but almost immediately dismissed the idea. He would definitely raise a few eyebrows by inquiring about a matter that was no longer his problem, and even if he was able to find out, it wasn’t exactly as if he was in the position to do anything about it. He was better off not knowing.

Regardless, the matter still weighed heavily on Kallus as he shuffled back to his quarters, his leg aching right on schedule. Kallus almost had to limp as he reached the door to the small, sparse room where he slept. He was reaching for the door controls when some movement caught the corner of his eye. He looked closer at the control panel and saw the buttons moving and warping to form a pale, holographic face before his eyes. As the image morphed, it took the form of a human female with long, delicate features, her disembodied head adorned with a long, conical hat traditional of Lothal women.

Kallus gasped in shock as he beheld the face of the late Minister Tua!


	2. Chapter 2

Kallus stared in shock and disbelief at the floating disembodied head of his late colleague. Instinctively, he reached for his blaster and turned his head to summon help, but his voice failed him. He steadied his breathing, bracing himself for whatever he was going to see, and slowly turned his head to behold.... a perfectly mundane and solid control panel.

The apparition, or whatever the hell that was, was gone as quickly as it had come.

Trying his best to process what in the universe had just happened, Kallus breathed heavily, clenching his fists to find his palms soaked in sweat. _There's no way what just happened is_ _possible_ , Kallus told himself. "It's just... stress..." he said aloud, trying his best to calm himself and find some suitable explanation. Yes, stress would do. The heaviness and doubt from the ice moon that he couldn't shake for the life of him was only strengthened by those damn cadets he dealt with today, not to mention Lyste making an already stressful waste of time even more stressful and time-wasting. Also, it wasn't as if his job was particularly easygoing or low-stress. Hallucinations were a perfectly expectable symptom of the stress he'd been dealing with lately. Right?

With a shaking hand, Kallus opened the door to his quarters, which he numbly entered. The quarters were designed to be the epitome of efficiency, including everything its occupant would need and absolutely nothing more. There was an admittedly rather hard cot that barely qualified as a bed, but definitely adequate for anyone trained by the Empire, a sink to wash up in, and a small storage unit for uniforms and other personal belongings. For most of his career, Kallus appreciated the simple sufficiency of Imperial accommodations, but since Bahryn, there was something deeply saddening about the cold, unfeeling sparseness. The worst part was that for the life of him, Kallus couldn't quite figure out why he was feeling that way. He was a military man, a member of the greatest armed force in history. Why should he yearn for warm, personalized quarters like some naive idealist? There was just something about the way Orrelios was received by his crewmates, as if he was some long-lost brother...

Kallus trudged over to his bed and plopped down hard on the unforgiving mattress. With a deep sigh, he turned his head, focusing his gaze on the one thing that adorned the little, meager room of his that was shared by no Imperial: the little meteorite that kept him and Orrelios alive in that frozen hell-scape. Even after a few months, the thing was still giving off its lifesaving heat and light. Kallus had no idea why he kept it. He wasn't normally a sentimental man, but there was just something about the little rock that made Kallus unable to bring himself to get rid of it. Maybe it was how its warmth contrasted with its cold, severe surroundings, or a reminder of how close he had come to death... Kallus shook aside those thoughts and chided himself for thinking such melodramatic, not to mention borderline treacherous, thoughts. 

Kallus finally calmed himself down enough to drown his contemplation in files and reports on his datapad, something he'd more or less required every night since the ice moon. Just before it became impractically late to stay up any longer, Kallus moved to select one last report to read before forcing himself to turn in for the night when he heard a short, sharp hiss coming from somewhere in the room. Startled, Kallus scanned the room for whatever could have made that noise. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, he assured himself it was nothing more than faulty piping. He forced himself to look back at his datapad when he heard the noise again, but louder. It almost sounded like a word, but he couldn't distinguish it. This time, Kallus got up from his bed to physically check the room for the sound's source. As he knelt down to check the under the sink, he heard it yet again, as if it was being uttered right behind his ear. It was even louder, a harsh whisper that he could now understand.

_Kallus._

"Who's there?," Kallus demanded, leaping up to position himself in the center of the room, slowly rotating as his mind raced to come up with some acceptable explanation.

Kallus's senses were on hyper alert. The beating drum pounding in his chest rang out in the deafening silence, accompanied by his slow, heavy breathing. In, out. In. Out.

In.

Out.

 _KALLUS_.

Kallus's heart stopped as the voice screamed from behind him. Trembling, he turned around, forcing himself to go at an agonizingly slow pace. When he finally completed his rotation, he found himself facing an apparition of the same woman whose disembodied head he thought he'd hallucinated.

Minister Maketh Tua.

Only, this time, Kallus was staring at her fully body exactly as it had been when she was alive, only blue and transparent.

"Hello, Kallus," said the specter. Kallus tried to respond, but his voice failed him once again, and he could do nothing but stand and gape in shock and horror. "I suppose you still recognize me," she continued. "In life I was your partner, or at least I thought I was," she said icily.

"You were the one who was treacherous," shot back Kallus. Apparently, indignation was enough to overcome shock.

"Funny, it seems as if you believe that I actually had any choice in the matter." The ghost regarded him even more coldly. "You knew it yourself, I was doomed if I stayed. Tarkin was quite clear regarding his true intentions in summoning me to his Star Destroyer. And for what crime was I to pay the ultimate price? Not doing my job? Last I checked, committing acts of warfare, illegal ones I might add, are not exactly under the job description of a public administrator. And what of Aresko and Grint? They were loyal as any servant of the Empire, but that hardly did them any good. Was I to share their fate? Execution for ineptitude?"

Kallus found himself unable to retort, realizing that anything he could come up with would only dig himself deeper. The memory of Aresko and Grint's execution pained him, their shocked expressions lasting only a split second before their heads were sliced from their shoulders. He had never said anything for fear of his own life, but he himself had always been uncomfortable with the dubious reasoning behind their deaths. Sure, they were embarrassingly inept and rather annoying, and Kallus would have been fine with seeing them demoted, or even fired. But execution? "I-I'm sorry," Kallus managed to spit out. "I was only following orders," he found himself saying, exactly what he had told Orrelios about the Lasan massacre.

Tua seemed unimpressed. "Is that what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night? Well, I can't say I'm surprised. Your level of loyalty was always borderline zealot-like. Though from what I've heard, you've been struggling with treacherous thoughts yourself. You even let a rebel, Garazeb Orrelios no less, escape your grasp alive and unscathed. The Kallus I knew would have leapt at any chance to kill him, yet you let him live. Imagine that, an ISB officer who befriends rebel scum," she chuckled mercilessly.

"How do you know of such things?" Kallus demanded, terrified at the idea of anyone, even an apparition, knowing of his crime. "I did what I had to do to survive. Working with him was the most logical course of action, nothing more."

"Was it logic when you spared his life after you had emerged from the cave? You had the heat source and could have easily taken the transponder from his body, but you instead helped him as he helped you." Kallus's breath hitched at that, knowing in his heart that every word she was saying was true, and that fact scared him more than any ghost possibly could. "Then again, I suppose you had to accept help from someone, as you were obviously not going to get it from the Empire. Wasn't it by the mercy of some bounty hunters that you managed to get off that moon?"

"Did you come here simply to taunt me?" Kallus asked angrily, ignoring the memory of the pain and loneliness he had felt upon realizing that the Empire he had served so loyally had given up on looking for him.

"I speak only truth. I mean no malice behind it," replied Tua, though Kallus seriously doubted that last bit. Tua was always a petty woman, and he would not be surprised if that had carried over into the afterlife. "But no, that is not why I have come. I am here to warn you. The Force sees your strife and seeks to interfere. On this night, you shall be visited by three spirits, each representing Life Days of the past, present, and future. They mean to teach you the true meaning of Life Day, and by extension, the Force in hopes that you can look within and save yourself."

"Why such fuss over Life Day?" Kallus asked, confused as to why something like the Force, unsure as he was in its very existence, would bother with a trifling holiday such as Life Day.

"I honestly don't know," Tua shrugged, "But it seems as if Life Day and the Force, and yourself for that matter, are more connected than you might think. Also, it might have something to do with the fact that tomorrow is Life Day. But no matter, the ghosts are coming whether you like it or not. I plead with you to not take this likely. Do not die with the regrets that I departed from this galaxy with. The monstrous things I've done will haunt me for all eternity, and my crimes pale in comparison to yours. I only wish the Force could have granted me a second chance it has for you."

"What are you saying?" breathed Kallus.

"Only what I have been sent to say, Kallus, a duty which I have now fulfilled. Expect the first spirit at 0100 hours. Farewell, Kallus."

"Wait!" cried Kallus, a thousand more questions spinning in his head, but it was no use. At that, Tua's ghost dissolved into the air, leaving Kallus in his cold, dark quarters, feeling more frightened, confused, and alone than he had ever felt in his entire life.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As it'd be kinda weird to be updating a Christmas fic in the middle of the year, I'll try to have this finished by Epiphany, but no promises!


End file.
